Saturday, May 22, 2010

Deep within a dungeon sits this rather large room at 80’ by 80’ that has two levels an upper level with seating reachable by four 5’ doors. Each side has a very detailed statue facing down to the field. The field as seem from above seems to have several items piled around the sand floor. Several decomposing bodies are also laying around 1d6+2.Light comes from the ceiling about 40’ upward. Vines have started to grow down and will cause an occasional shadow to appear to move across the stands. If the PCs sit down they will have a faint tingle then a phantom sound of a crowd shouting in an unknown or unrecognizable language. The sand seems to coalesce into phantom movements.

The real fun begins when the PCs enter the arena floor. A loud booming voice issues from the statues “Welcome to you who are to honor your gods. So begin your test of strength, both of body and of faith.”“For any barbarians who don’t know of our gods’ test you must seal the idols faces with these three orbs.” Three stone orbs appear floating around the center of the arena. “Your opponents are the souls of our greatest warriors.”

The sand forms into humanoid shapes make to look feral and menacing. The number is 1d3 per PC. AC equal to PC HP equal to PC. Damage Slam w/fist 1d8/1d8 push 5, able to go into arena sand and appear anywhere on the floor. Immune to lightening but slowed by fire. Regenerates when merged with sand at 1hp per round spent moving under sand.

Any PCs who attempts to exit the field by climbing above the banister that the statues are resting upon will be struck by a lightening bolt of 3d6 divine damage and pushed back down to the floor. Length of game is scoring 3 sets 3 times in alternating idols. If PCs lose they die in a swirling mist of sand, blood and sweat. If they win, they get to choose items determined by the GM as the treasure reward.

Statues seem to move while the game is in progress but cannot be removed or moved by PCs except by the power of a Wish spell. Infraction of the rules will cause a gong to sound and the infracting player will receive a 2hp shock with a penalty shot to the opposing team. GM could be very arbitrary about what is an infraction i.e. breathing hard, broken boot lace, possession of weapons, etc.

Aura of magic is strong divine and necrotic. All healing is boosted for 1 day after this encounter due to residual effects.

To scale up the encounter, the balls can be replaced with spheres of annihilation constructed to move by combined WIS and INT. Think of it as an epic level dodge ball. Strength required moving a normal stone ball is minimal but is increased to a plus equal to the strength bonus. +1 equals additional square on the movement and so on.

BAB applies to sinking in stone with range set up with 10/20/30 being short/medium/long. Specters have a BAB of +6 with STR +4.

When the sand specters are defeated the PC’s can move back up in to the bleaches with a simple climbing check without any interference from the Statues. Or they can exit out thru the porticlis leading out to an unknown section of the dungeon.